An Evening After the Dream
by ExtremeSManpig
Summary: A short story told from Akane's perspective as she muses and commentates about an average day for her. A day that takes place in the real world, not long after she had woken up from her dream.


I let out a large sigh.

Boredom filled every essence of my soul as I turned my head to the side and stared out the window next to me, while I skilfully twirled the pen in my hand and played with my long hair using the other. The teacher continued to drone on and on about another pointless topic, it felt tiring, I wasn't interested in the lesson again and my mind drifted off to the world of wonderings again.

Life could be a pain sometimes.

…but despite this,

 _"It was worth living through it."_ I thought to myself as a wistful smile curled onto my face.

It was only a few days ago since I awoke from that dream…

Yet, it already felt like it was long time since then.

 _dong dong dong doooong dong dong dong dooooong_

The bell's ringing echoed through the school, bringing my attention back to the classroom. The teacher then let us go for the day, as everyone quickly began to pack their bags. Sighing again, I stood up from my desk and began to put my schoolwork back into my own bag.

"Hey Akane?"

I turned to my classmate Namiko who was leaning at the side of my desk.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Some of us are going to the mall tomorrow to do a bit of shopping in the afternoon, wanna come with?"

I wanted to go to Mandarake tomorrow anyways, so there was no reason to decline. I'd just split from them once they were done, simple.

Besides, I needed to begin reaching out more to my friends anyways.

"Sure, that's fine with me."

"Awesome! We'll meet you there at 12!"

With that, Namiko paced over to her group of friends, tripping a little on the way, making me giggle.

As I walked home from school, the town was dyed in a warm orange huge. I heard the train crossing's bell echo from a distance as a train shot by like a bullet, with violet chugging sounds.

Noisy.

…But somewhat relaxing.

I unwrapped a hot dog that I had saved from lunch and took a bite. It was a simple snack but it tasted good and the basic flavours of sausage, lettuce, egg and bread simply tasted really good.

It's the little things that matter sometimes, right?

I continued walking down the street when suddenly, a familiar face turned right at the corner and bumped into me.

"Ah, Akane! Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."

I looked up at his figure while taking another bite out of my hot dog, his face had a somewhat apologetic expression, clearly embarrassed by that display. Oh my, what an amusing fellow he is.

"Oh, hey there Yuta! Why are you in such a rush?"

"I just wanted to go home quickly, my family returns today, so I wanted to get home as fast as possible. Again, I'm sorry for running into you because of that…"

He scratched his head awkwardly. Haha, cute.

"Whatever~, it's not like I got any of it on my clothes or dropped it. If you really want to do something for it, you can join me in the walk back until we need to split."

"Ah…okay then!"

I paused. "…Really? I was only kidding you know, don't you want to greet your parents."

"Uh…nah it's fine. I was mostly just excited, we can talk if you really want."

"Alright then, suit yourself."

We continued to walk back together as I finished my snack, and talked about pointless things as we walked through town. He was somewhat too kind for his own good, but I guess that's just how he is. Oh Yuta Hibiki, if this were an anime, you'd be a prime choice for a protagonist.

Thinking that reminded me of Yuta being Gridman again.

Yeah, I guess he really was the protagonist, wasn't he?

He really acted as such. We walked along the town, Yuta was a good natured boy for his age, and while he didn't intentionally socialise often, he was often friendly, if not a bit dorky, and I get along with him for that.

The Yuta in my dream really took after him.

"Ah, I'm going in this direction, I guess we're parting here."

"Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for joining me Yuta, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Right, see you at school!"

With that, he ran in the direction of his house. Geez, he really was excited. I felt my face get warm at the thought of seeing him tomorrow.

I really hope he enjoys seeing his parents.

"I'm home!" I yelled into my large house.

"Ah! Akane, welcome back!"

I let out a huge groan of weariness as I left my shoes at the doorstep and stomped into my house in my socks.

"Aaaaah I'm so tired!" I complained to nothing. My entire body felt sluggish after another tedious day of school, I just wanted to return to my room and relax doing things I wanted to do instead of doing anything else.

So of course, that's exactly what I decided to do.

I dragged myself through the kitchen to greet mom, who was busy cooking dinner for the family. She turned and looked at my weary self, happy to see her proud daughter back from another day of painful school.

"Hey Akane, how was school today?"

"Tiring, I feel every part of my body aching."

"Really? That's good though, it means you did a good job at school today working hard!"

I doubt it.

"I guess, hey mom, what's for dinner?"

Since I returned, food was always a think I found being thankful for.

"You'll see once it's time for it. In the meantime, you should work on your homework for today."

I groaned.

"I understand, I'll see you later then."

Lumbering out of the kitchen, I walked up to the stairs and stumbled into my room. It was a large room filled with manga, merchandise, and of course various figurines of heroes and villains from fictions. A room that any otaku like me could be proud of and lose themselves in after a painful day in the real world.

I popped down my bag next to my desk and landed down on my chair and turned on my desklight. I turned to look at my bag again.

Guess it can't be helped.

I dragged out a textbook from my bag and began to diligently do homework.

Back in my ideal world I basically erased the act, nobody needed to bother and it wasn't even brought up.

In a world like this though, tedious stuff like this must be done.

and I guess it's fine.

Laboriously I worked on my homework, slowly completing my requirements for the day question by question. The sound of my pencil scratching the surface of my paper could be heard in the room, as the clock slowly ticked by. Sooner or later, I finished my homework, for the day, and began to work on my next figure. It was a sculpture of Kamen Rider Black RX, one of my favorite heroes.

"Akane? Your father's home so it's dinner time!" I heard my mother yelling from the bottom of the stairwell.

"Coming!"

Excitedly, I jumped of my chair, and slid out the door, ready for a wonderful meal to enjoy.

Today was quite ordinary. Sure, there were some standout moments like walking home with Yuta and having an amazing dinner with my family tonight, but otherwise, it was quite average.

But, that's fine, tedious days like this are something I've learned to cherish, even if they were monotonous to go for.

I lay down in my bed, preparing to doze off into sleep.

Sleep, my mind drifts back to what sleep had brought to me in the past.

Back when I slept, I was given a world all to myself, all to my own. A world that I could create from the beginning, one to my every preference or whim. One I could lose myself in, and care for the people I cared for. A world that I didn't have to care about tedious things, annoying things, painful things, unhappy things, unsatisfying things, or negativity. It was a world of my dreams, all to myself.

But I know now, that wasn't the right thing for me.

I know now, that I shouldn't of lost myself in that world. Despite creating it, it was not my place to control it, and it had become it's own real world, one in a different space, time, and possibly even dimension. It was a different world that I could no longer return to, and should never return to.

I remembered all the memories from that bright blue city. The many things I participated in and saw, the actions I took without remorse. Honestly, it was a tough time, and there were many things I now regret from that world. It was hard, and the sins I created remain a burden on my shoulders.

Hmm, even so, I did have many good memories and moments from it…but…

I know now, that I shouldn't of stayed. The world was given to me by Alexis · Kerib as my ideal world, but I know now that even an ideal world can't house a broken soul forever, and that I would have to face problems eventually.

He taught me that.

Leaving was the right thing to do. I needed to face reality, and face the potential negativities that came with every day life, and now I've gained the courage to do so, even if it wasn't to my liking.

Gridman taught me that.

He shouted that he believed in the infinite potential of humans, including my own. His trust was well placed, as I left the world on my own accord and will. He and the members of the Gridman Alliance saved me, by teaching me to save myself.

I smiled as I recalled what he taught me while drifted to sleep, fully intent in not seeing a world of my own, and waking up tomorrow for a bright morning.

He truly was the Hero of Dreams…because…

Gridman was the hero that saved Akane Sho from her own dream.

 _End._

 **Authors Notes:**

 **I wanted to write this as a sort of love letter or appreciation for Akane's character, showing off potential growth from the events of SSSS. and how she's changed as a person. But more importantly, you may have noticed that in this story, I sort of constructed the "real world" that Akane lived in myself. Well, I'm here to say that it wasn't just pointless imaginings, and that I made a lot of my own liberties based off of small details in the series, as well as a variety of different theories that circulated in the many conversations I took part in or saw, all while adding my own interpretations to all the details and theories myself. So because of that, I wanted to use this area to explain the story a bit to those that might not understand some of the details and such.**

 **First off is Yuta as Akane's implied love interest. The reason for this is simple, she obviously showed some form of interest in Yuta in the main series, and that can be interpreted as attachment or even feelings for him. As for why I decided not to make her object of affection Utsumi or Rikka, despite Akane obviously showing mutual interests and likings to both of them, especially Rikka, that plays off into the next thing I want to talk about.**

 **Obviously in this story, I mirrored some of the characters from Akane's dream world in the real world. This was because while Alexis · Kerib helped Akane made an "ideal world" for herself, obviously there had to have been a "base" for that ideal world. My thought process is that most people would probably be fine with the world they are in, but with the annoyances gone, and that's why I basically made this world a mirror to the one we see in the dream.**

 **With that, and going back to why Rikka and Utsumi weren't even present here, is that I went off the theory that the main cast that belong in the world itself represent an aspect of Akane that she "shed off" to create them to be her close friends. Utsumi representing the part of her that's secretly an otaku, and Rikka being the idealised version of herself. As I try to bring mention in my story, Akane creates Rikka is made to look like her real-life self, and that in real life, she is the one who is friends with Hass and Namiko, as Rikka was made to be that ideal friend based on her own ideal image of herself.**

 **On the other hand, Akane herself in her world was structured on not only her normal self, but also her subconscious feeling where she thinks she's the "villain", that's why her personality is especially warped in her idealised world, why the "television show" has camera angles that make her seem split off from the others or make her seem more insane, and why she has a fascination in kaiju specifically, as they are often the villains in Tokusatsu. That's why in my story, I tried to make Akane's personality a bit of a mix of Rikka and Akane herself, and why she's also fan of more things than just specifically kaiju.**

 **Expanding on the concept that this Akane is a more "complete" Akane than the one we see in the show, Akane in this story seems to know more things than her show counterpart and reference a lot of things from , as in the real TV show. This was because Gridman itself clearly tried to blur the line between the "real world" and a "television universe", so I wanted to continue that trend, and executed it with Akane's overall awareness of the whole situation that conspired.**

 **Now going back to the theory that the main cast represented aspects of Akane, you might ask why Yuta was the outlier, and well, the answer is he actually isn't! Remember, we never actually see Yuta himself, and the Yuta we know in the show is the part of Gridman that's inside Yuta's body, and not Yuta himself. So we don't really know Yuta's real character. To expand on that, Yuta-Gridman both represents, and _actually is_ the "hero" that Akane always wanted. I'm going to go out on a leg to assume that once in your life, you've wanted to have a hero in our lives that saves us from our sadness or problems, and wanted them to be your special one. That is what I find Yuta-Gridman represented the part of Akane that wanted a hero to save her, and Gridman, as in the Hyper Agent, actually becomes that exact hero that saved her. This also links into why Yuta-Gridman falls for Rikka, as Rikka is her "idealised self", she'd want the hero to fall in love with her, and he does!**

 **As for her name being "Akane Sho", well, that's simply because of my headcanon that the real Akane is the daughter of Naoto Sho and Yuka Inoue from the original Gridman show! Yuka did have feelings for Naoto, and it would also link even more things together to the original show, which is something that SSSS. clearly liked to do.**

 **In any case, I hope all of this helps makes sense of certain aspects of the story, as well as show how much thought and love I put into this short story. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope it ultimately shows. Akane was a great character, and I hope I did her justice here. Thanks for reading my interpretation for a day in her future, and remember…**

 ** _We all must leave our idealised dreams by our own free will, and go back to where we belong._**


End file.
